Over the high fence Gregor flew like a bird. He ran at full speed into Stepan from behind. Stepan staggered, and turning round came at Gregor like a bear.
The Melekhov brothers fought desperately. They pecked at Stepan like carrion-crows at a carcass. Gregor went several times to earth, sent down by Stepan’s knuckles. Sturdy Piotra was stout by comparison with the stiffer-jointed Stepan, but he bent under the blows like a reed before the wind, yet remained on his feet.
Stepan, one eye flashing (the other was going the colour of an under-ripe plum), retreated to the steps.
Christonia happened to come along to borrow some harness from Stepan, and he separated them.
‘Stop that!’ He waved his arms. ‘Break away, or I’ll report it to the Ataman.’
Piotra cautiously spat blood and half a tooth into his palm, and said hoarsely:
‘Come on, Gregor. We’ll catch him some other time.’
‘Don’t you try lying in wait for me!’ Stepan threatened from the steps.
‘All right, all right!’
‘And no “all right” about it or I’ll pull your guts out, soul and all.’
‘Is that serious or joking?’
Stepan came swiftly down the steps. Gregor broke forward to meet him, but pushing him towards the gate, Christonia promised him: ‘Only dare, and I’ll give you a good hiding.’
Chapter Five
‘Tell Piotra to harness the mare and his own horse,’ Pantaleimon ordered Gregor as, solemn as a churchwarden at mass, and sweating like a bull, he sat finishing his soup. Dunia was vigilantly watching Gregor’s every movement. Ilinichna, bobtailed, and looking important in her lemon-yellow Sunday shawl, a motherly anxiety lurking in the corners of her lips, said to the old man:
‘Get some more down your neck, Prokoffitch. You’re starving yourself.’
‘No time to eat,’ he replied.
Piotra’s long, wheaten-yellow moustaches appeared at the door.
‘Your carriage is ready, if you please!’ he announced.
Dunia burst into a laugh, and hid her face in her sleeve.
Ilinichna’s shrewd widow cousin, auntie Vasilisa, was to go with them as matchmaker. She was the first to nestle herself into the wagonette, twisting and turning her head, laughing, and displaying her crooked black teeth beneath the pucker of her lips.
‘Don’t show your teeth, Vasilisa,’ Pantaleimon warned her. ‘You’ll ruin everything with your gap. Your teeth are set all drunk in your mouth; one one way and one the other …’
‘Ah, dad, I’m not the bridegroom to be …’
‘Maybe you’re not, but don’t laugh all the same.’
Vasilisa took umbrage, but meantime Piotra had opened the gate. Gregor sorted out the smelly leather reins and jumped into the driver’s seat. Pantaleimon and Ilinichna sat side by side at the back like two youngsters, with no room to give or take.
Gregor bit his lips and whipped up the horses. They pulled at the traces and started off without warning.
‘Look out! You’ll catch your wheel!’ Daria shrilled, but the wagonette swerved sharply, and bouncing over the roadside hummocks, rattled down the street.
Leaning to one side, Gregor touched up Piotra’s lagging horse with the whip. His father held his beard in his hand, afraid that the wind would catch and carry it away.
‘Whip up the mare!’ he cried hoarsely, bending towards Gregor’s back. With the lace sleeve of her jacket Ilinichna wiped away the tear that the wind had brought to her eye, and winkingly watched Gregor’s blue satin shirt fluttering and billowing on his back. The cossacks along the road stepped aside and stood staring after them. The dogs came running out of the yards and yelped under the horses’ feet.
Gregor spared neither whip nor horses, and within ten minutes the village was left behind. Korshunov’s large hut with its plank-fence enclosure was quickly reached. Gregor pulled on the reins, and the wagonette suddenly stopped at the painted and finely fretted gates.
Gregor remained with the horses; Pantaleimon limped towards the steps. Ilinichna and Vasilisa sailed after him with rustling skirts. The old man hurried, afraid of losing the courage he had summoned up during the ride. He stumbled over the high step, knocked his lame leg, and frowning with pain clattered up the well-swept stairs.
He and Ilinichna entered the kitchen almost together. He disliked standing at his wife’s side, as she was taller by a good six inches; so he stepped a pace forward, and removing his cap, crossed himself to the black ikon.
‘Good health to you!’ he said.
‘Praise be!’ the master of the house, a stocky, tow-haired old man replied, rising from the bench.
‘Some guests for you, Miron Gregorievitch,’ Pantaleimon continued.
‘Guests are always welcome. Maria, give the visitors something to sit on.’
His elderly, flat-chested wife wiped non-existent dust from three stools, and pushed them towards the guests. Pantaleimon sat down on the very edge of one, and mopped his perspiring brow with his handkerchief.
‘We’ve come on business,’ he began without beating about the bush. At this point Ilinichna and Vasilisa, pulling up their skirts, also sat down.
‘By all means; on what business?’ the master smiled.
Gregor entered, stared around him and greeted the Korshunovs. Across Miron’s freckled face spread a vivid russet. Only now did he guess the object of the visit. ‘Have the horses brought into the yard. Get some hay put down for them,’ he ordered his wife.
‘We’ve just a little matter to talk over,’ Pantaleimon went on, twisting his curly beard and tugging at his ear-ring in his agitation. ‘You have a girl unmarried, we have a son. Couldn’t we come to some arrangement? We’d like to know. Will you give her away now, or not? And we might become relations?’
‘Who knows?’ Miron scratched his bald spot. ‘I must say, we weren’t thinking of giving her in marriage this autumn. We’ve our hands full with work here, and she’s not so very old. She’s only just past her eighteenth spring. That’s right, isn’t it, Maria?’
‘That will be it.’
‘She’s the very age for marriage,’ Vasilisa joined in. ‘A girl soon gets too old!’ She fidgeted on her stool, prickled by the besom she had stolen from the porch and thrust under her jacket. Tradition had it that matchmakers who stole the girl’s besom were never refused.
‘Proposals came for our girl away back in early spring. Our girl won’t be left on the shelf. We can’t grumble to the good God … She can do everything, in the field or at home …’ Korshunov’s wife replied.
‘If a good man were to come along, you wouldn’t say “No,”’ Pantaleimon broke into the women’s cackle.
‘It isn’t a question of saying “No,”’ the master scratched his head. ‘We can give her away at any time.’
The negotiations were on the point of breaking down. Pantaleimon began to get agitated, and his face flooded with beetroot juice, while the girl’s mother clucked like a sitting hen shadowed by a kite. But Vasilisa intervened in the nick of time. She poured out a flood of quiet, hurrying words, like salt on a fire, and healed the breach.
‘Now, now, my dears! Once a matter like this is raised, it needs to be settled decently and for the happiness of your child. Even Natalia – and you might search far in broad daylight and not find another like her! – work burns in her hands! What a handiwoman! What a housewife! And for her, as you see for yourselves, good folk,’ she opened her arms in a generous sweep, turning to Pantaleimon and bridling Ilinichna. ‘He’s a husband worthy of any. As I look at him my heart beats with yearning, he’s so like my late husband, and his family are great workers. Ask anyone in these parts about Prokoffitch. In all the world he’s known as an honest man and a good … In good faith, do we wish evil to our children?’
Her chiding little voice flowed into Pantaleimon’s ears like syrup. He listened, pulling the little tufts of black hair from his nostrils with his middle and index fingers, and thinking rapturously: ?
??Ah, the smooth-tongued devil, how she talks! You can get what she’s driving at! Another woman would stun a cossack with her many words … And this from a petticoat!’ He was lost in admiration of Vasilisa, who was fulsomely praising the girl and her family as far back as the fifth generation.
‘Of course, we don’t wish evil to our child,’ Maria declared.
‘The point is it’s early to give her in marriage,’ the master said pacifically, beaming with a smile.
‘It’s not early, true God! Not early,’ Pantaleimon rejoined.
‘Sooner or later, we have to part with her,’ the mistress sobbed, half-hypocritically, half in earnest.
‘Call your daughter, Miron Gregorievitch, and let’s look at her.’
‘Natalia!’
A girl appeared timidly at the door, her swarthy fingers fiddling with the gathering of her apron.
‘Come in! Come in! She’s shy,’ the mother encouraged her, smiling through her tears.
Gregor looked at her.
Bold grey eyes under a dusty black scarf. A shallow, rosy dimple in the elastic cheek. Gregor turned his eyes to her hands: they were large and marred with hard work. Beneath the short green jacket embracing the strong body, the small, maidenly, firm breasts rose and fell, outlined naïvely and pitifully; their sharp little nipples showed like buttons.
In a moment Gregor’s eyes had run over all of her, from the head to the arched, beautiful feet. He looked her over as a horse-dealer surveys a mare before purchase, thought ‘She’ll do,’ and met her eyes directed stubbornly at him. The simple, sincere, slightly embarrassed gaze seemed to be saying: ‘Here am I all, as I am. As you wish, judge of me.’ ‘Splendid!’ Gregor replied with his eyes and a smile.
‘Well, that’s all.’ Her father waved her out.
As she closed the door behind her, Natalia looked at Gregor without attempting to conceal her smile and her curiosity.
‘Listen, Pantaleimon Prokoffievitch,’ Korshunov began, after exchanging glances with his wife. ‘You talk it over, and we’ll talk it over among the family. And then we’ll decide whether we’ll call it a match or not.’
As he went down the steps Pantaleimon slipped in a last word:
‘We’ll call again next Sunday.’
Korshunov remained deliberately silent, pretending he had not heard.
Only after he learnt of Aksinia’s conduct from Tomilin did Stepan, nursing his pain and hatred in his soul, realize that despite his poor sort of life with her he loved her with a dreary, hateful love. He had lain in the wagon at night, covered with his coat, his arms flung above his head, and thought of how his wife would greet him on his return home. His eyes veiled with their black lids, he had lain thinking over a thousand details of his revenge.
From the day of his homecoming an unseen spectre dwelt in the Astakhovs’ hut. Aksinia went about on tiptoe and spoke in whispers, but in her eyes, sprinkled with the ash of fear, lurked a little spark, left from the flame Gregor had kindled.
As he watched her Stepan felt rather than saw this. He tormented himself. At nights, when the drove of flies had fallen asleep on the cross beam, and Aksinia had made the bed, he beat her, his hairy hand pressed over her mouth. He demanded shameless details of her relations with Gregor. Aksinia tossed about on the hard bed, and could hardly breathe. Tired of torturing her soft body, he passed his hand over her face, seeking for tears. But her cheeks were burningly dry.
‘Will you tell?’ he demanded.
‘No!’
‘I’ll kill you!’
‘Kill me, kill me, for the love of Christ! This isn’t life …’
Grinding his teeth, Stepan twisted the fine skin, all damp with sweat, on her womanly breast. Aksinia shuddered and groaned.
‘Hurts, does it?’ Stepan said jocularly.
‘Yes, it hurts.’
‘And do you think it didn’t hurt me?’
It would be late before he fell asleep. In his sleep he clenched his fists. Rising on her elbow, Aksinia gazed at her husband’s face, handsome and changed in slumber. Throwing her head back on the pillow, she whispered to herself.
She hardly saw Gregor now. She happened to meet him once down by the Don. Gregor had driven the bullocks down to drink, and was coming up the slope, waving a switch and watching his steps. Aksinia was going down to the Don. She saw him, and felt the yoke of the buckets turn cold in her hands and the blood boil in her veins.
Afterwards, when she recalled the meeting, she found it difficult to convince herself that it had really happened. Gregor noticed her when she was all but passing him. At the insistent scrape of the buckets he raised his head, his eyebrows quivered and he smiled stupidly. Aksinia gazed right through his head at the green waves of the Don, and beyond to the ridge of sandy headland.
‘Aksinia!’ he called.
She walked on several paces and stood with her head bent as though before a blow. Angrily whipping a lagging bullock, he said without turning his head:
‘When is Stepan going out to cut the rye?’
‘He’s getting ready now.’
‘See him off, then go to our sunflower patch and I’ll come along after.’
Her pails scraping, Aksinia went down to the Don. The foam serpentined along the shore in an intricate yellow lacework on the green hem of the wave. White seagulls were hovering and mewing above the river. Tiny fish sprinkled in a silver rain over the surface of the water. On the other side, beyond the white of the sandy headland, the grey tops of ancient poplars rose haughtily and sternly. As Aksinia was drawing water she dropped her pail. Raising her skirt, she waded in up to her knees. The water swirled and tickled her calves, and for the first time since Stepan’s return she laughed quietly and uncertainly.
She glanced back at Gregor. Still waving his switch, he was slowly climbing the slope. With eyes misty with tears Aksinia caressed his strong legs as they confidently trod the ground. His broad-legged trousers, gathered into white woollen stockings, were gay with crimson stripes. On his back, by one shoulder-blade, fluttered a strip of freshly torn dusty shirt, and through the hole showed a triangle of swarthy flesh. With her eyes Aksinia kissed this tiny scrap of the beloved body which once had been hers; the tears fell over her pallid, smiling lips.
She set her pails down on the sand to hook them on to the yoke, and noticed the traces of Gregor’s boots. She looked stealthily around: no one in sight except some boys bathing from the distant strand. She squatted down and covered the footprint with her palm, then rose, swung the yoke across her shoulders, and hastened home, smiling at herself.
Caught in a muslin mistiness, the sun was passing over the village. Beyond the curly flock of little white clouds spread a deep, cool, azure pasture. Over the burning iron roofs, over the deserted dusty streets, over the farmyards with their parched, yellow grass, hung a deathly sultriness.
As Aksinia approached the steps Stepan, in a broad-brimmed straw hat, was harnessing the horses into the reaping machine. He flung his sailcloth coat over the front seat, and took up the reins.
‘Open the gate,’ he told her.
As she did so, she ventured to ask:
‘When will you be back?’
‘Towards evening. I’ve agreed to reap with Anikushka. Take the food along to him. He’ll be coming out to the fields when he’s finished at the smith’s.’
The wheels of the reaping machine squeaked, and carved into the grey plush of the dust. Aksinia went into the hut and stood a moment with her hand pressed to her head, then, flinging a kerchief over her hair, ran down to the river.
‘But supposing he returns? What then?’ the thought suddenly burnt into her mind. She stopped as though she saw a deep pit at her feet, glanced back, and sped almost at a run along the river-bank to the meadows.
Fences. Gardens. A yellow sea of sunflowers outstaring the sun. The pale green of potato plants. There were the Shamil women hoeing their potato patch, their bowed backs in rose-coloured shirts. Reaching the Melekhovs’ garden Aksinia glance
d around, then lifted the wattle hasp and opened the gate. She followed the path along to the green thicket of sunflower stems. Stooping, she pressed into the midst of them, smothering her face with golden pollen, and lifting her skirt sat down on the ground.
She listened: the silence rang in her ears. Somewhere above her was the lonely drone of a bee. For perhaps half an hour she sat thus, torturing herself with doubt. Would he come? She was about to go, and was adjusting her kerchief, when the gate scraped heavily.
‘Aksinia!’
‘This way,’ she called.
‘Aha; so you’ve come, then!’ Rustling the leaves, Gregor approached and sat down at her side.
Their eyes met. And in reply to Gregor’s mute inquiry, she broke into weeping.
‘I’ve no strength … I’m lost, Grishka.’
‘What does he do?’
Wrathfully she tore open the collar of her jacket. On the rosy, girlishly swelling breasts were numerous cherry-blue bruises.
‘Don’t you know? He beats me every day. He is sucking my blood … And you’re a fine one … Soiled me like a dog, and off you go … You’re all …’ She buttoned her jacket with trembling fingers, and, frightened lest he was offended, glanced at Gregor, who had turned away.
‘So you’re trying to put the blame on me?’ he said slowly, biting a blade of grass.
‘And aren’t you to blame?’ she cried fiercely.
‘A dog doesn’t worry an unwilling bitch.’
Aksinia hid her face in her hands. The strong, calculated insult came like a blow.
Frowning, Gregor glanced sidelong at her. A tear was trickling between her first and middle fingers. A broken, dusty sun ray gleamed on the transparent drop and dried its damp trace on her skin.
Gregor could not endure tears. He fidgeted in disquiet, ruthlessly brushed a brown ant from his trousers, and glanced again at Aksinia. She sat without changing her position: but three runnels of tears were now chasing down the back of her hand.